[Usability] tabs, views and a lot of data

[Peter Klein <p_klein web de>]

Hello Usability List!

I have a few comments about the discussion of tabs. I will not concentrate on 
any specific application (even if this: 
http://www.gnome-look.org/content/show.php?content=34970
started my writing), instead I would like to give this discussion a more
general approach.
The use of tabs is almost every time a try to offer data under different aspects
(in the case above: 'Search', 'Upload', 'Download', etc.). One can think of 
these different aspects as different views, different meta data etc. The
problem with Tabs is that you usually can lost the context when you switch
your focus to another view. An alternative approach could be the use of a table
with all these different aspects in different columns. To avoid the visual
clutter of this solution, I would restrict the vertical height to one row for
each entry (similar to the Nautilus list view). Only the most needed information
would be presented in this row. If the user would like to have closer look at
an specific aspect, he should click (left mouse button) on the appropriate cell. 
The cell will get the focus, resizes to a size that offers more (all) 
informations and the other cells will step back. Right clicking in that cell 
could reverse the action (resize to standard).
The user won't lost the context, had always an overview of the whole data and
could concentrate of the aspects he's interested in.
The problem to fill the rows of this table with the most needed information is
refered as DOI (Degree Of Interest). One (preferably a usability engineer ;-))
has to determinate what information is offered in which 'zoom stage' - I refer
to the focusing of the cell as zoom because it is a kind of semantic zooming.
To view such a behavior in the real world I would like to point to this
url:
http://hci.uni-konstanz.de/MedioVis/MedioVis-HyperGrid.jar
(use "Shrek" for an example query ;-))
I do not think that this demo will kill all usability flaws that are linked
up with big information spaces and different views - but it ist certainly
an interesting alternatives. OK - the cell-renderer are not standard java
widgets - but hey... Do we have the best hackers or not ;-) ??

Best regards,
 Peter
-- 
"A common mistake people make when trying to design something
foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools." -
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